The writers get out of town and the oxymorons take over
As a concept I Am Legend works. A completely abandoned New York city is a visually grand concept that, done properly, can translate well to the silver screen. It’s the kind of concept that can really capture the viewer’s imagination — especially when all you’ve got to do is cut a two minute trailer.
     Legend’s was a first class movie trailer that asked more questions than it answered and left moviegoers asking themselves: "How can I afford to miss this one, after being lured in by this inviting little trailer?"
     Fact is, moviegoers, when a fabulous trailer, with spectacular visuals, asks a few big questions and then gives nothing away, it usually means there’s not all that much to offer once they’ve got your ten bucks and you’ve dropped the same again on popcorn and soda at the candy bar.
     The oxymoron in this flick is the movie’s tagline: The last man on earth is not alone. If he’s not alone, how can he be the last man on earth? That, by its very definition, is an oxymoron.
     They might as well have said: the last man on earth is a woman or the last man on earth is a catfish or a dog? In fact, for the first half of Legend, the only other man in the world was a dog. A German Shepherd played by “Abby” and “Kona” — that’s right, as with most big Hollywood animal roles, there’s more than one pooch playing the same part.
     But the real animal hijinks came from the herds of deer and occasional prides of lions roaming the Upper East Side. These were all Jumanji inspired computer generated furry friends. Note to producers: moviegoers can tell the difference between real and fake animals.
     Not wishing to end with the animals, the people in this flick, except maybe Will Smith (but don’t bet on it), were also computer generated.
     People? What people? I hear you say. “Will Smith is the last man on earth!” He is, but just in case he gets lonely, the producers whacked a couple of hundred thousand others living in Manhattan. And who were these people? Former people, really, mutants who’d suffered from a virus that accidentally infected the globe some years earlier wiping out civilization as we know it. Let me think, it wasn’t the Black Plague, don’t think it was AIDS, can’t say for sure whether it was the Ebola Virus, hang on, what about SARS? No… then it would have been a Jackie Chan movie set in Beijing.
     Anyway it was some virus whose potential to wipe out humanity is every bit as fictitious as the aforementioned ills.
     Computer generated characters and the overuse of special effects are becoming the bane of Hollywood — it’s a poor stand in for weak plots, cardboard acting and poor scripts. You’d swear the WGA strike had been on strike for the past three years judging from what producers and directors have been doing to screenplays.
      Legend begins predictably, with some big wides of deserted Manhattan and Will roaring into the opening shot in a stolen Ford. It ends just as predictably with proof that Will’s life work has not been in vain — hence the legend. His life work is finding a cure for the virus, apart from being guilty of grand theft auto, he’s also a top military scientist whose pre-virus specialty was presumably anti-chemical warfare research.    
     As usual Will Smith was good without being stretched. Note to Will: It’s about time you get a bad guy role under your belt. Furthermore it's time you ask your agent one simple question: “Would Denzel have given up his role as the American Gangster to take my place on Legend?” Not even if it was the last film on earth.